


Still don't know where it goes

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 09:18:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Jody run into Kevin, who may or may not want their help. (AU after 9.09)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still don't know where it goes

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: Loosely connected to my other fic All At Once, set in an AU of the second half of S9. Title by Bonne Sommerville. Thank you to hufflepuffdean for the tweaks.

The air in the abandoned mill smells of sulfur, old dust, and a sourness Sam can't identify. Sam catches the scratch of shoes on the floor behind him, turns, and tackles the demon. He jabs the syringe into her thigh. 

The host body writhes, the black eyes dissolving back to a normal brown rimmed in white, and a stream of black smoke screams out of the girl's mouth, races towards the ceiling and then out a cracked window.

"It's okay," Sam tells the girl, letting go of her, his heart racing with relief. "You're going to be okay." The formula was working; that was the third person he's been able to save that week.

The girl scrambles away from him across the dirty wood floor, gaze wide and startled, as a shotgun blast sounds to Sam's right. 

Sam gets to his feet, into a fight-ready stance, and sees Jody turning the demon she just shot full of rocksalt onto his stomach, shotgun set down on the floor near her feet. She handcuffs the guy efficiently, then rises and gets out the piece of paper she's been carrying in the pocket of her jeans. Jody does the Rituale Romanum in the same tone she probably uses to read criminals their rights.

"I think this the last," Jody says when it's done. She kneels to check the pulse of the host. "He's alive." 

"Thank you," the girl says, trying to tuck her black hair back into a thick braid, but her fingers shake too much.

Jody picks up her shotgun and walks over. "What's your name?" 

"Karen."

"I'm Jody, and this is Sam. Can you do something for me, Karen?" Jody bends and puts her free hand on the girl's shoulder. "Can you look after that guy there for a few minutes? We need to make the place is cleaned out."

The girl nods, letting Jody help her to her feet. Her face is streaked with dirt and tears, and Sam hopes he never has to drive his knife into a host ever again. The girl goes over to the unconscious man.

Sam and Jody make their way deeper into the mill, where pale light falls through the windows, capturing the dust hovering in the air. It's strange working with someone not Dean, the unspoken stuff that has to actually be spelled out at times, and the snarky inner voice in his head that keeps making Dean-like remarks. Yet things click into place with Jody more smoothly than Sam thought he would, and at least he knows where Dean is, that he's at the bunker, or he's hunting, and he's (for the moment, as far as Sam knows) alive. 

In the center of the next room someone's kneeling, head bowed, blindfolded, hands behind his back. In the half-darkness the figure's only a silhouette at first, but as they move closer Sam recognizes the familiar shape of his face, his build.

"Kevin," Sam says, and it's like his feet suddenly turn to lead weights. "It's Kevin."

At that, Kevin raises his head. "Who's there?"

Sam starts forward, and then halts. "I think maybe you'd better," he murmurs to Jody. "Last time he saw me…well. I wasn't _me._ "

Jody's fingers go tight around his wrist for a moment, giving a quick squeeze, before she draws away and walks slowly towards Kevin. She puts the shotgun down on the floor and crouches. 

She lowers the blindfold carefully and Kevin blinks at the return of light, dim as it is. "Who're you?"

"Sheriff Jody Mills. Sometimes I…uh…moonlight. I'm a friend of Sam and Dean's."

At that Kevin turns and sees Sam. He tenses.

"Kev--" Sam starts but what can he possibly say?

"Yeah," Kevin says. "Don't worry. I know it wasn't you, what happened. Before."

"We have to make sure you are, though. Sorry," Sam says and takes out the flask of holy water. He walks over and sprinkles Kevin with it.

Kevin twitches as the water hits his face but endures the test without comment. Then Jody unties him, starts checking his cuts. She pulls out a tissue, spits on it, and wipes away the worst of the blood on the side of his face.

"What happened?" Sam asks, hanging back as Kevin gets to his feet. 

He staggers a little and Sam reaches out to grab him, without thinking. When Kevin tenses up again, Sam lets go.

"I had a lead on my mom. At least, I thought I did. Surprise! It was a trap. I think they were holding me for Abaddon or something, I don't know." He sighs and looks twelve years old for a moment, yet taller, and like he's added muscle since the last time Sam saw him. "Can we get out of here?"

* * *

They drop the surviving hosts off at a police station, suggesting they don't tell the truth if they want to avoid a string of psychiatric evaluations and a delay in being allowed to go on with their lives.

Jody rides shotgun, and Kevin sits in the corner of the back seat of the truck Sam's been driving lately and stares out the window. 

"Just take me back to my motel," he says.

"Kev, c'mon man, you can't just…"

"Don’t call me _Kev_."

"All right." Jody raises her hands in a peace-making gesture. "How about you at least let us take you somewhere to eat? Then you can go wherever you need to, promise. But you seem like you could use a good meal and you've been through some crap. You might not like it," she adds, turning in her seat, "but we aren't going to just leave you."

They stop at a red light. Sam wraps his fingers tight around the truck's steering wheel, keeps his gaze forward, on the road.

"I am kind of hungry," Kevin says.

* * *

Jody goes into the diner to get them a table while Sam opens up the first aid kit.

He holds it towards Kevin. "You don't want my help, then clean yourself up, so those cuts don't get infected."

Kevin lets out a long, deep sigh. "Fine. Go ahead. I'd like to get this dried blood off, it itches."

Surprised that Kevin's accepting his offer, Sam gets out of the truck and joins Kevin in the back. He swipes at the cuts with hydrogen peroxide while Kevin tries not to wince. Nothing needs stitching. There are bruises blossoming on Kevin's arms, near his wrists, and along his jaw.

Sam's stomach goes a little hollow at the sight. "Looks like you put up quite a struggle." He puts a bandage on the worst cut, a shallow one at Kevin's hairline. 

Fingers curled around the edge of the seat, Kevin keeps his back straight, not looking at Sam. "I had two supersoakers full of holy water. Bastards had to use chloroform, otherwise I doubt they could've actually captured me." His lips twitch, a hint of pride in his voice. Sam doesn't doubt it's true.

The moment that Sam puts away the first-aid kit, Kevin slides away from him. He opens the door of the truck and climbs out.

Before following Kevin into the diner, Sam puts away the medical supplies and texts Dean.

 _Ran into Kevin._ He hesitates, wondering if he should tell Dean exactly how, but decides not to; Dean would only worry. _He's doing ok._

He gets a text back almost immediately. _Define 'ok'_.

 _Alive, pissed off. Jody and I are taking him to get some food._ Sam waits outside the diner to see if there's another reply. Or maybe there's more he should be saying and he can't, there's a tunnel of regret carving through him. 

_Cas says hi,_ Dean texts.

 _Tell him hi back,_ Sam replies.

It's not the first time Cas has been a bridge cable, helping to hold the whole mess together, and probably won't be the last.

* * *

Kevin plows through two veggie burgers, a plate of fries, and a chocolate milkshake as if he hasn't eaten for a month--he seems to have stuck with being vegetarian even if he's ditched the whole vegan thing. 

The diner's almost empty except for the three of them; it's around four in the afternoon, too late for lunch, too early for dinner. Sam picks at his salad and Jody shoots him a concerned look over the rim of her coffee mug, sleeve of her soft leather jacket brushing his wrist as she puts the mug down.

"I wasn't exactly me when we last saw each other," Sam says, speaking fast in case Kevin tries to shut it all down. "But I still wanted to say I'm sorry."

"Yeah, Dean already covered that." Kevin chews on his straw a moment before letting it sink back into the remains of his milkshake.

"Listen, Kevin, Dean's--"

"He told me I was safer in there than out on my own. That we were family." 

Sam feels the way Jody goes tense next to him before she speaks. "Maybe I should…I have to go to the little girl's room." She starts to slide out of the booth but Sam rests his fingers lightly on her arm to stop her.

It isn't as if she doesn't know the whole story, he told her when they worked that haunting in Michigan. She was family too; she deserved to know.

"We are," Sam tells Kevin.

Kevin dunks the last few overcooked fries into the ketchup on his plate and stares out through the diner windows at a forlorn small house falling to pieces in the field next door.

* * *

Last time Sam was at the bunker, before he went out on the road again, he told Dean everything about that year, about the night he hit the dog, about the panic, about his terror that if he did anything, if he started looking for Dean, uncovered where he was trapped, there'd be no stopping what might happen next, the things Sam might do to get his brother back. 

He wanted no one else hurt because of him.

He saw his own fears reflected in Dean's face, but underneath, there was a strange relief as well, for both of them. That it was said, and the knowing they weren't that different after all.

* * *

Sam watches as Jody helps Kevin adjust the straps on his backpack and hands him a brown paper bag with the cheese sandwiches she ordered for him. 

"You take care of yourself, okay?" Jody says, making sure Kevin has to look her in the eye.

Kevin nods. The _ma'am_ seems to hang there unspoken.

Sliding a glance sideways at Sam, Jody walks way towards the truck. 

Kevin walks away in the other direction. 

"Hey, Kevin," Sam trots to catch up with him and Kevin turns. Sam stops short. He wants to say _stay alive_ and _be careful_ but that doesn't seem right. Kevin can't promise either, and Sam can't promise it for him even if Kevin did go back with him to the bunker. "Don't do anything too stupid," Sam says.

After a moment where Kevin fiddles with the backpack straps, staring over at the house and the tree that probably pre-dates every building in sight, he turns back to Sam. His face softens slightly. "Yeah. You too."

Then he walks away, a lone figure in a backpack on the side of the road.


End file.
